How can I deploy a new version of an existing Amplify app using the AWS/Amplify CLI without user interaction?

Question

I am a newbie in using AWS Amplify and I just published my own frontend WebApp with it developed with React. I just zipped my build folder and dropped the resulting zip file in the AWS Console. It is working fine.

However, the job is done manually and I want to automate that. I have CI&CD servers other than the ones in AWS which are working fine for my other services. So what I need is a script to automate what I just did as a I want to reuse my existing CI&CD servers. Having such a script will be really useful as I can reproduce the steps locally or in a docker container.

I know that there is a solution for that: the amplify CLI. However, commands such as amplify init, amplify configure and amplify pull require a lot rights and a lot of user interaction even the AWS profile (with the secret key and access key) has already been configured.

It would be great to do something like this:

amplify deploy build.zip <APP-ARN>

or (in case of a folder)

amplify deploy /build <APP-ARN>

Essentially, I just want to automate what I did manually: uploading the (zipped) build folder to deploy my AWS Amplify app. Thus, this means no user interaction.

How to do this?

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Jun 08 '21 at 15:01

1

Your solution is git, aws amplify has the ability to watch a git repo and detect changes. If there is a change to the branch that you have set it to watch, it will automatically build a new version.

You can set it up to build only frontend or both backend (amplify) and frontend.

Create a git repo. You can use for example github or aws codecommit
Configure your project to publish to that git repo
In AWS Amplify console start a new app or change your existing one, to watch the git repo
Publish changes to the git repo and watch in the amplify console that it automatically builds a new version of your app

answered Jun 08 '21 at 15:01

Engam

1,051
8
17

I know but I really want to use the AWS CLI. I have a working CI CD solution with good features. I can deploy everything from there to any environment I want. I find it hard to imagine that AWS Amplify is an exception. It is possible to select a a zip file and upload that for deployment. The only thing I want is to automate that via the CLI. – Daan Jun 08 '21 at 15:25
Logically, I want to prevent using 2 CI CD solutions. – Daan Jun 08 '21 at 15:31

kethan sarma · Answer 2 · 2022-07-07T14:44:11.790

I have tried that for a sample React application with the Node Package Manager (npm) as below. Achieved it using github workflow as below

name: CI-CD-Pipeline-to-AWS-Amplify-Manual-Deployment
env:
  AMPLIFY_PACKAGE_S3_BUCKET_NAME: "amplify-manual-deploy-trail"
  AWS_REGION: "us-west-2"
  APP_ID: "ABC123xyz" 
  PACKAGE_NAME: "build"
 
on:
  push:
    branches: ["main"]
jobs:
  ci-pipeline:
    runs-on: [ubuntu-latest]
    steps:      
      - uses: actions/checkout@v3
      - name: Use Node.js
        uses: actions/setup-node@v3
        with:
          node-version: 16
      - run: npm ci
      - run: npm run build --if-present
    
      - name: Create Zip Deployment Package
        run: cd build && zip -r $PACKAGE_NAME * -x *.git*


      - name: Configure AWS Credentials
        uses: aws-actions/configure-aws-credentials@v1
        with:
          aws-access-key-id: ${{ secrets.ACCESS_KEY_ID }}
          aws-secret-access-key: ${{ secrets.SECRET_ACCESS_KEY }}
          aws-region: $AWS_REGION

      - name: Copy Deployment Package to AWS S3
        run: |
          cd build && \
          aws s3 cp $PACKAGE_NAME s3://$AMPLIFY_PACKAGE_S3_BUCKET_NAME

  cd-pipeline:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    needs: [ci-pipeline]
    # Steps represent a sequence of tasks that will be executed as part of the job
    steps:
      - name: Configure AWS Credentials
        uses: aws-actions/configure-aws-credentials@v1
        with:
          aws-access-key-id: ${{ secrets.ACCESS_KEY_ID }}
          aws-secret-access-key: ${{ secrets.SECRET_ACCESS_KEY }}
          aws-region: $AWS_REGION
     
      - name: Deploy the new application version
        run: |
          aws amplify start-deployment \
            --app-id $APP_ID \
            --branch-name manual \
            --source-url s3://$AMPLIFY_PACKAGE_S3_BUCKET_NAME/$PACKAGE_NAME.zip

@daan this should work for you – kethan sarma Sep 07 '22 at 08:01 — kethan sarma, Sep 07 '22 at 08:01

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Jun 19 '21 at 06:39

I'm quite new to AWS & Amplify, but I think the design philosophy, including CI/CD would be to spin up a new compute instance with the new Amplify installation and let the load balancer sort things out after stopping obsolete instances. This allows easier rollbacks etc.

score 0 · Answer 4 · edited Jul 21 '21 at 17:01

You can achieve what you are trying to do with AWS CLI. If you have an AWS CLI configured in your CI/CD pipeline, you can use the command 'start-deployment.

aws amplify start-deployment --app-id <value> --branch-name <value> --source-url <value>

In the above command use the --source-url param to specify the URL from where Amplify can download the zip file (This URL should be publicly accessible). Once the above command runs, you should be able to see the deployment on the Amplify console screen.

You can also achieve the same using create-deployment and start-deployment commands. With this method, first, you can pass the zip file in the create-deployment command and second, during the start-deployment command, you do not have to use --source-url param. You can see these commands being called in the "Network" tab of developer tools when manually uploading the zip using web UI.

How can I deploy a new version of an existing Amplify app using the AWS/Amplify CLI without user interaction?

4 Answers4